Can we talk about the apparent culture of sexual abuse in the american film industry?

[stroopwafel]

You seem disturbingly adamant in implying this is somekind of female conspiracy that an old but otherwise harmless creep was the victim of. And that any woman with a carreer in Hollywood claiming sexual haressment is automatically some vain, talentless slut who slept her way to the top and is now just ditching her sugar daddy. In which case, wow dude... Seriously, fucking wow! Way to show an extremely distasteful side of yourself.

And one wonders why many victims of sexual haressment don't speak out.

Ehmm..no I don't think I mention 'conspiracy' anywhere. Maybe bother to read my post first. Fact is Wiener has been a sleezeball for decades and the timing of the 'harassment' allegations is, how coincidential, right after the media crash and burned his career. That is some display of courage and sincerity. It's like, being fucked twice. First literally and then figuratively. That's probably too much though even for Wiener.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Ehmm..no I don't think I mention 'conspiracy' anywhere. Maybe bother to read my post first. Fact is Wiener has been a sleezeball for decades and the timing of the 'harassment' allegations is, how coincidential, right after the media crash and burned his career. That is some display of courage and sincerity. It's like, being fucked twice. First literally and then figuratively. That's probably too much though even for Wiener.

Yeah, I did read your post claiming all these women enjoyed being sexually haressed by Weinstein, since they're all talentless hacks who can only further their carreer by being pawed at by scummy producers.

And I said 'implying'.

 

[stroopwafel]

It is same in the only part that counts in this anology: "consent" doesn't matter, because the concept flies out the window once someone is threatening you with harm if you don't do what they want. It doesn't have to be physical harm. Also, you keep framing it in terms of choice, but to be pedantic, I have the choice to decline a mugger. He might kill me on the spot, or he might be just holding a water pistol and do nothing. Either way, he's still trying to put me under duress, illegally pressuring me into making a decision I really don't want to make, so that removes any sense of actual consent.

You really have to twist and bend your argument here to demonstrate how Wiener's behavior is synonomous with violent muggery. A sleezeball making insinuations about sexual favors amounts to the same choice for you as being potentially threatened and killed. Way to go. Again, these women were in a position to decline his avances and unless you live in a dream world in which a mugger could be declined in a similar manner your entire argument is invalid. Wiener did not 'harm' anyone by not making an aspiring actress rich & famous. If rejecting an actress for a movie role is the same ''duress'' and ''illegal pressure'' for you as being threatened physical harm I really don't know what to say. I didn't know a role in a Hollywood production was a human right.

Also, I'm not a lawyer, but I am a HR person and the stance I'm taking is standard for any organisation: A person who brings a person into their business and starts making business arrangements in exchange for sex is committing to sexual harassment. It is illegal for staff to sexually harass people; it is an inherently abusive thing to do, regardless of whether the victim is genuinely "up for it". Consent is actually irrelevant to the fact that something illegal is being proposed in the first place and consent doesn't stop that thing being illegal.

So? What your company policy is is meaningless outside those office walls. How corporations treat their employees is often more questionable than Wieners' sex-drive.

 

[stroopwafel]

Ehmm..no I don't think I mention 'conspiracy' anywhere. Maybe bother to read my post first. Fact is Wiener has been a sleezeball for decades and the timing of the 'harassment' allegations is, how coincidential, right after the media crash and burned his career. That is some display of courage and sincerity. It's like, being fucked twice. First literally and then figuratively. That's probably too much though even for Wiener.

Yeah, I did read your post claiming all these women enjoyed being sexually haressed by Weinstein, since they're all talentless hacks who can only further their carreer by being pawed at by scummy producers.

And I said 'implying'.

Learn to read. I did not mention 'enjoyed' or 'hacks' anywhere. Just that most actresses aren't special and that people can serve their self-interest without enjoying it. This is not your anime in which an innocent little princess must be saved from the big old ugly ape.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Nothing as gross as Weinstein but his wife says he's been banging wannabes since Buffy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/22/hypocrite-preaching-feminist-ideals-director-joss-whedons-ex-wife-accuses-him-of-cheating/?utm_term=.7960bf1b7646

This is why talking about this kind of thing gets so complicated; someone does something allegedly illegal and then other people get dragged into it who didn't do anything illegal but did something legal, albeit icky.

Rape allegations aside, what Whedon did is no different than what Weinstein did: he used his position of power to coerce people into having sex with him in exchange for a career boost. It's nothing new, big shots have been banging hungry starlets since Hollywood was called Tinseltown and James Ellroy has been writing noir. The difference here is that Weinstein is being accused by his victims, while Whedon isn't (Mrs. Whedon notwithsanding).

 

[9tailedflame]

I think we can approach the problem from a few angles.

1) Powerful people do what they want: It's a sad truth, but we all know the law doesn't apply to everyone equally in a functional sense. Lawyers and contracts protect those who can afford it. I guess the only way to combat this is more people standing up, and perhaps some legal reform.

2) Lack of safe courtship script: The old norms about flirting, dating, courtship, and sex are on their last dying breath, and in many ways this is a good thing, it allows women more choice, and respects personal autonomy more. It does, however, largely leave us making things up as we go along in terms of how to procede. Needless to say, some people are going to come up with their own methodology, some quite poorly as we've seen. In this case the best corse of action is to collectively set a universal standard, which is kindof happening, unfortunately, like most things nowadays, it's polarized into 2 absurd extremes, the people who think "eye rape" is a tjing, and the people defending Mr Weinstein. I think we need to all agree that anyone looking at anyone is acceptable and not at all rape, while also expecting a certain level of civility when it comes to courtship. Guys should act decently and women should reject people who act like assholes, I know telling people how to engage themselves in this context isn't going to be a popular udea, but if you want to stop shit like this, that's how it's going to happen.

3) Change Hollywood/showbiz culture. We all know Hollywood is full of creatively bankrupt fat cats, recycling old ideas and expecting everyone to treat them like royalty. This entitled, outdated attitude contributes to the problem.

Sorry for the edit, hit the pst button by mistake.

 

[Cold Shiny]

Its called the Filing Cabinet Problem. We only hear about the bad people, so it looks like they make up the majority. The reality is that the vast majority of Hollywood people live normal lives and don't try to hurt anybody. But we would never hear about those people because they don't make good news.

 

[Zhukov]

Yeap, personal responsibility doesn't exist when it comes to women. They're too stupid to defend themselves.

The fuck?

Self defense is why they don't come forward until their abuser has fallen out of favour and it is safe to do so.

Fact is Wiener has been a sleezeball for decades and the timing of the 'harassment' allegations is, how coincidential, right after the media crash and burned his career. That is some display of courage and sincerity. It's like, being fucked twice. First literally and then figuratively. That's probably too much though even for Wiener.

Fucking hell dude. Way to show your true colours.

They're coming forward now because he no longer has the power to damage their careers in retaliation. It's not fucking complicated.

People with attitudes like yours contribute to making these situations possible. People who will dismiss accusers as being self-serving.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

People with attitudes like yours contribute to making these situations possible. People who will dismiss accusers as being self-serving.

I'm just wondering what his definition of coercion is, if "powerful person will try to damage your career permanently if you decline" doesn't count.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

You've been to university, you should know that the technical terms of specific science fields often mismatch to the popular use of the words.

I've been to college, never been to a university (unless you count physically being inside of one).

But this isn't a "professional vs laymen" use of the term, this is a "laymen with one political leaning vs laymen of any other leaning"
use of the term, much like how Trans means "anyone who isn't a man or a woman" to the far left, while to everyone else we still use it to mean those transitioning from one gender to the other.

Gender studies are no different in that regard, which is why it pays to actually read up on the terms and their connotations instead of just assuming you can deduce them from reading the words without context. This shouldn't really come as a shocker to you.

The only thing that tells me is that those in the politically driven areas of academia don't actually understand linguistics, though given the fact that terms like "homophobia", "transphobia" and "islamophobia" exist despite their linguistic meaning being at odds with their definition, I shouldn't be surprised.

When you keep making up terms that brake the rules of how our language works, why is anyone shocked when the 99% of society that isn't in the group making these terms doesn't know what the hell is trying to be said? If we need a term so badly, why not make one that actually follows the rules of English linguistics? If anything that would make it easier to make new terms to begin with.

Your argument is so funny it makes me want to cry, when I take into account that you call yourself a progressive conservative. Progressive Conservative. A complete contradiction in terms. And yet you use "lol linguistics" as an excuse to discount the term "rape culture," and then by some imaginative transitive property to somehow also discount the fact that this country is okay with rich white men raping young women.

I mean it, I could cry.

 

[Zontar]

Your argument is so funny it makes me want to cry, when I take into account that you call yourself a progressive conservative. Progressive Conservative. A complete contradiction in terms.

Not in the slightest, the reason most of our provincial level conservative party and a not-insignificant wing of the federal level party call ourselves that is because the ideology is best summed up as "socially progressive economic conservatives".

Now granted I'll be the first to admit that with how things have changed since the 1950 when the term first came about things have changed, namely that progressivism is no longer something that's catch-all and instead has become a left wing anti-liberal view, with the term for PCs being grandfathered in more then anything else, and today would be better named Liberal Conservatism or Libertarian Conservatism, but it's not as if those between the 50s and 80s could have predicted progressives going so absolutely batshit that you'd more easily believe they're Soviet subversives then people who actually believe their own insane bullshit (because as sad as it is, despite knowing it's the latter it's still easier to think of it being the former)

this country is okay with rich white men raping young women.

Yes, that's why those same white men (rich or not, in fact usually not) are the ones used to explain why we need to get rid of due process by progressives who have long stopped pretending they want anything other then a fascist state, and why you need conspiracy to keep this under wraps, because the lynch mob we're so quick to form if we find out is totally what a rape culture would look like.

Oh wait, it's the literal opposite, small groups that allow rape within their ranks (usually Islamic or far left entertainers in the West, odd how that played out) have to do everything in their power to prevent society from finding out because we react to it so badly it's a significant part of the reason the right and far right are taking over Europe in an unstoppable wave right now: because the thing they've promised to solve is actually a problem we're okay with.

The level of delusion and projection required to think a rape culture exists in the West is mind numbing to think about. And we're repeatedly told this is coming from the same place that's smarter then the average. I'm not sure which I'm more, surprised or disgusted.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Your argument is so funny it makes me want to cry, when I take into account that you call yourself a progressive conservative. Progressive Conservative. A complete contradiction in terms.

Not in the slightest, the reason most of our provincial level conservative party and a not-insignificant wing of the federal level party call ourselves that is because the ideology is best summed up as "socially progressive economic conservatives".

Now granted I'll be the first to admit that with how things have changed since the 1950 when the term first came about things have changed, namely that progressivism is no longer something that's catch-all and instead has become a left wing anti-liberal view, with the term for PCs being grandfathered in more then anything else, and today would be better named Liberal Conservatism or Libertarian Conservatism, but it's not as if those between the 50s and 80s could have predicted progressives going so absolutely batshit that you'd more easily believe they're Soviet subversives then people who actually believe their own insane bullshit (because as sad as it is, despite knowing it's the latter it's still easier to think of it being the former)

Oh, so, linguistically, words and phrases can change subtly in meaning to be taken on by certain social causes? Hm. I wonder where else that might have happened?

...

Oh, right, with the term RAPE CULTURE.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Your argument is so funny it makes me want to cry, when I take into account that you call yourself a progressive conservative. Progressive Conservative. A complete contradiction in terms.

Not in the slightest, the reason most of our provincial level conservative party and a not-insignificant wing of the federal level party call ourselves that is because the ideology is best summed up as "socially progressive economic conservatives".

Now granted I'll be the first to admit that with how things have changed since the 1950 when the term first came about things have changed, namely that progressivism is no longer something that's catch-all and instead has become a left wing anti-liberal view, with the term for PCs being grandfathered in more then anything else, and today would be better named Liberal Conservatism or Libertarian Conservatism, but it's not as if those between the 50s and 80s could have predicted progressives going so absolutely batshit that you'd more easily believe they're Soviet subversives then people who actually believe their own insane bullshit (because as sad as it is, despite knowing it's the latter it's still easier to think of it being the former)

this country is okay with rich white men raping young women.

Yes, that's why those same white men (rich or not, in fact usually not) are the ones used to explain why we need to get rid of due process by progressives who have long stopped pretending they want anything other then a fascist state, and why you need conspiracy to keep this under wraps, because the lynch mob we're so quick to form if we find out is totally what a rape culture would look like.

Oh wait, it's the literal opposite, small groups that allow rape within their ranks (usually Islamic or far left entertainers in the West, odd how that played out) have to do everything in their power to prevent society from finding out because we react to it so badly it's a significant part of the reason the right and far right are taking over Europe in an unstoppable wave right now: because the thing they've promised to solve is actually a problem we're okay with.

The level of delusion and projection required to think a rape culture exists in the West is mind numbing to think about. And we're repeatedly told this is coming from the same place that's smarter then the average. I'm not sure which I'm more, surprised or disgusted.

Ah, also, it's bad form to quote me in a post and then immediately edit that post so that my response looks like I ignored the second half of your argument. That's a pretty cheap trick.

 

[Zontar]

Oh, so, linguistically, words and phrases can change subtly in meaning to be taken on by certain social causes? Hm. I wonder where else that might have happened?

...

Oh, right, with the term RAPE CULTURE.

Rape culture hasn't had a subtle change over time, it's had academics in a field currently overrun by people who never would have entered academia if it had has as many safeguards as it likes to think it does who are in active war against the rest of academia trying to force the term (amongst many others) into society despite the fact the 99% of us who aren't living in those ivory towers have no idea what the fuck this new dialect of English and those who us it are on about because this violently sudden change in the meaning of words that had no natural cause and did not happen over a prolonged period of time has left us with a large subset of society (the modern progressive) who speaks a dialect that is at odds with that which the rest of us use (us being moderates, liberals, conservatives and libertarians).

 

[Zontar]

Ah, also, it's bad form to quote me in a post and then immediately edit that post so that my response looks like I ignored the second half of your argument. That's a pretty cheap trick.

It's not that I was trying to make you look like you ignored half of what I posted, it's that after posting I reread the last line and realized how mindboggling it was and decided it was worth responding to it.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Ah, also, it's bad form to quote me in a post and then immediately edit that post so that my response looks like I ignored the second half of your argument. That's a pretty cheap trick.

It's not that I was trying to make you look like you ignored half of what I posted, it's that after posting I reread the last line and realized how mindboggling it was and decided it was worth responding to it.

My mistake then.

Although to respond to your previous post:

In a world where the word "ill" can mean "taken with a sickness" for centuries and then, for no discernable reason suddenly come to mean "awesome," and then 5 years later drop that new meaning almost entirely, yes we fucking can make up new terms and apply them to a society that is changing so rapidly none of us can keep up with it.

In fact, that's really the root cause of conservatism in general. Technology has made a world wherein society is on a god damn roller coaster, blasting from high to low to high every other minute, and a lot of people just want it to stop. It's why the world is so scary. But freezing the status quo is not a solution. It's stagnation.

 

[Zontar]

In a world where the word "ill" can mean "taken with a sickness" for centuries and then, for no discernable reason suddenly come to mean "awesome," and then 5 years later drop that new meaning almost entirely, yes we fucking can make up new terms and apply them to a society that is changing so rapidly none of us can keep up with it.

That's not exactly a good example because, while a different group was pushing it, it's another example of a group trying to push a new very different meaning of a word and society rejecting it.

In fact, that's really the root cause of conservatism in general. Technology has made a world wherein society is on a god damn roller coaster, blasting from high to low to high every other minute, and a lot of people just want it to stop. It's why the world is so scary. But freezing the status quo is not a solution. It's stagnation.

I'm not exactly sure what that has to do with any of this, unless you're trying to say we should accept that words can have a small group in society unilaterally decide it has a dramatically different meaning from what the rest of us think it is and then expect us to within 5 minutes accept it.

We're still dealing with the fact that the better part of a decade ago someone decided the word Trans suddenly means something different and much of society still isn't in agreement on what this new meaning even is (with the rest of society not even agreeing that the term has changed from the shorthand it used to be).

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

*snip*

The Progressive Conservative party you joined up with was textbook neo-liberal.

Talk about a radical shift in language. Liberals haven't changed much at all, but boy howdy has the right-wing managed to change the meaning of the word.

 

[Zontar]

*snip*

Funny how those accusers waited until the late stage of the election to come out, never went to the police and all shut up the moment the election was over instead of pushing harder given that would almost ensure impeachment and more.

The Progressive Conservative party you joined up with was textbook neo-liberal.

I actually didn't join any because the federal conservatives make no claim of being the defunct federal Progressive Conservative party and my local right wing party is the Coalition for Quebec's Future.

Talk about a radical shift in language. Liberals haven't changed much at all, but boy howdy has the right-wing managed to change the meaning of the word.

Yes, liberals haven't changed much at all, that's why Donald Trump, between the 90s and mid 10s, despite not changing his politics, went from moderate democrat to moderate republican, because things didn't change.

 

[Zontar]

Greg Curtner of Occupy Democrats Logic really should be verified at this point given how many hundreds of thousands of people see his stuff on Facebook.